Passenger rail service debacle

[sd45elect2000]

Interesting. That makes sense.  I have seen worn rail where there is a distinct ridge at the edge of the railhead (as if it was squished down from the top).

Wheels do the same thing; the steel tends to flow towards the outside of the wheel.

Randy

[Ed Kapuscinski]

There are even prototypical track cleaning trains too.

https://railfan.com/aem-7-electrics-back-in-service-on-septa/

[cv_acr]

Short trains and light engines are speed restricted because there is NOT a lot of wheels to close the track circuit especially on freshly rusted rail or dirty rail from tree sap, leaves, bugs etc…

Funny enough one of my engineer friends was talking about signal systems and axles just the other evening at an operating session on another friend's layout.

It also depends on the signal system. The track circuit only runs about 2-4 volts, and the lower voltage is less "sensitive". Before CN upgraded their system from 2 volts to 4 volts, CN and later VIA Rail was operating minimum 3-car sets on RDC passenger trains, with single engine RDC-9 middle cars. Because three pieces of equipment were required for the signal system. VIA paid to upgrade the signal system to the higher voltage/sensitivity and recouped their investment in half a year by ditching the extra middle car and reducing train sets to 2 units.

Even today light power in singles and pairs are speed restricted, have to have at least three pieces of equipment to not be speed restricted.

[cv_acr]

Maybe you missed it.  The routes with a lot of cars are using a lot of cars because they are required to provide enough axles to carry enough current to trigger crossing gates.  Meanwhile, routes that are starved for cars are sold out, and not even carrying enough passengers for the connections to other roads to get seats. So, the prices on the sold-out trains are escalated. 

I don't feel I particularly miss anything there. There's still no surprises there.

Minimum train lengths due to crossing/signal reliability and/or other operational requirements, even though the passenger space isn't needed.

Maximum train lengths due to station/platform capacity, locomotive hauling capacity, equipment availability, other operational requirements, etc. so the train(s) get sold out.

The busy line is busy, the not-busy one isn't.